EA Sports College Football 27 by developer EA Tiburon and publisher Electronic Arts—Sony PlayStation 5 review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
Showing posts with label EA Tiburon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EA Tiburon. Show all posts
EA Sports College Football 27 - PS5 Review
Madden NFL 26 - PlayStation 5 Review
Madden NFL 26 is developed by EA Tiburon and published by Electronic Arts—Sony PlayStation 5 review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes.
EA Sports College Football 26 - PlayStation Review
EA Sports College Football 26 by developer EA Tiburon and publisher Electronic Arts—Sony PlayStation 5 review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes.
Madden NFL 24 Review
Madden NFL 24 by developer EA Tiburon and publisher ElectronicArts—Microsoft Xbox Series X review written by Nick with a copy provided by the
publisher.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Fall is around the corner, which means the NFL is nearly
here – and that means Madden NFL 24 has arrived. Those now are inclined to hate
the series due to its yearly release cycle are going to probably continue to do
so. However, for those such as myself who enjoy this time of the year and the
formula that Madden provides, it’s an entertaining game that is also probably
the most complete iteration in the series since the Xbox Series X released.
I’ve probably played more Madden titles than any other
series of video games released during my lifetime. Of course, it comes out
every year and I’ve been playing since its release on the Sega Genesis decades
ago. This annual cycle makes sense as EA wants to tie it into the excitement of
each new season. It’s the nature of sports in general. It’s all very cyclical (some
would say cynical, declaring the cadence a money grab), but I don’t see this release
pattern going away. Enthusiasm for a sport is at its highest near the start of
a season. It’s a world of possibility for fans who follow their favorite teams
and hope that ‘this is their year’.
The obvious downside of this cycle is that the Madden
franchise doesn’t get a great deal of time to innovate. It’s about tweaks and
polish, picking a few headline options to add because of the very strict
release schedule. The good news is, Madden NFL 24 is a very solid release.
There’s a bunch of newly named features such as Sapien AI and FieldSENSE that
are really just fancy ways of saying that the team has put a focus on trying to
make the gameplay as authentic as possible. It’s a tough task, given that there’s
two teams of 11 on the field shoving, sprinting, jumping and tackling one
another on every play.
The end result is a positive one. There’s probably always going
to be some small bouts of weirdness that happens, but after playing very
heavily (a couple of dozen hours and counting), I haven’t seen any of the
really odd issues that have crept up in the past. There have been years where
the ball or player physics were not overly realistic and there have been rare
but exceptional moments where they’ve been straight up anime-levels of unrealistic
and clearly broken. I never had any of
that here. On any given play you have linemen engaged in blocking, quarterbacks
and running backs with the ball in their hands as they try to make would-be
tacklers miss, wide receivers trying to create separation from the secondary to
make sometimes spectacular catches, and the presentation does a good job of
nailing these aspects of the game.
Speaking of the presentation, I was pleasantly surprised by
the audio. The on-field sounds have been quite solid for some time, lending to
the authenticity of the game’s action. However, as recently as a year or two
ago, I grumbled about the color commentary becoming a bit long in the tooth. I
still think that we’ve heard the same voices for long enough that it’s worth
considering a change there, but in recent years there were a handful of strange
issues where the commentary did not align well with the action. I didn’t hear
nearly as much of that in this year’s release. It’s a subtle thing, but hearing
them correctly state whether a ruling on the field was overturned, or having
them talk about a player’s number of rushing touchdowns (when it was in fact a
receiving touchdown) and more just doesn’t seem to be happening at this point.
Simply put: the on-field action is fun and it’s dressed up
in a pretty presentation. Since that is where I spend most of my time with this
game, it’s a good foundation to build off of.
It probably helps that my favorite modes have gotten some new
features added. Okay, there’s an argument to be made that some of them are just
old features that had been pruned off of the series in years past and are
getting reintroduced, but they’re still welcome additions. By far I spend most
of my time in the Franchise mode. This has numerous RPG-like elements and the
player and franchise progressions have been the dangling carrot on the stick
for me that I can’t help but chase. Training camp mini-games, deeper player
scouting and improved commissioner controls are the highlights here, but it’s a
deep mode that I readily sunk a lot of hours into.
The Superstar mode is back, and it continues to create a
sort of structured story for your created player (who can be any one of several
positions like quarterback, wide receiver and linebacker for example), but it’s
not as narratively heavy as Face of the Franchise has been in the past. It’s
basically Madden’s attempt to answer what we see in NBA 2K’s career mode, and
it does a pretty good job. I would make a character, see him through the
combine, get drafted and proceed to play games and go through drills to improve
my player. It’s like a more centralized version of the franchise mode, focused on
the player and not the team. You can jump online and play some more arcade-like
backyard style games (called Showdown now). Again this feels like good growth
to try and emulate what we’ve seen in other sports games over the years, and it’s
a lot of fun.
I will touch on the Madden Ultimate Team (MUT) briefly, as
it’s a mode EA highlights a lot (which makes sense, since it’s microtransaction-heavy
and generates additional income for them). It’s an interesting hybrid of
fantasy football and card collecting (two hobbies of mine) that has you opening
packs to better your team and complete various challenges to earn currency and
players to help better your team. It’s a very clear progression loop that some
people absolutely adore. I think it’s made some nice strides over the last few
years, with a bit more variance in the activities and the way you can develop
your roster, but this is just the least interesting of the modes for me
personally. I still spent some time in it, but the random nature of the packs
and cards you pull make progress feel less about my skill as a player or team
builder.
Madden NFL 24 is never going to fully shake the online
discourse about it being a money grab due to the MUT and yearly release cycle,
but as a diehard NFL fan? I had more fun with this year’s iteration than I have
in years. The modes I enjoy most have continued to gain depth and polish, and
the overall package is incredibly well done. We’ll likely never see a Madden
game make improvements by leaps and bounds over the prior year, but incremental
improvements to an already strong foundation are enough for me to enjoy the
start of the NFL with this title.
Score: 8 / 10
Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure - Retro Reflections
Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure by developer EA Tiburon and publisher Electronic Arts—Nintendo DS retro reflection written by Hamza. 2009.
The result you get when you mix a British professor, platforming with puzzle elements and solid fun is Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure. To sum up the game; Tomb Raider with elements from Columns. Though the controls are a little finicky and a pain to get around to, the gameplay is original and always on its toes. Other games have originality that only seems to come in short bursts... here, it stays with you always and never gives up for a second.
The story sees the titular protagonist on the search for the Golden Suit – a grab that will allow the user access to the Puzzle Realm. At first skeptical that the suit has any alleged magical powers, he succumbs to the old wives tale when he personally witnesses what it can do, despite only finding the hat. When he dons it, he immediately becomes younger and fast, opposite of his current, original self. Intrigued, he then seeks out to find the rest of the suit, solving puzzles, fighting critters and knights along the way.
The story is simple and positively reeks of old school adventure and action, with exploring and battle elements. Quite reminiscent of King Solomon’s Mines – but without the macabre, of course. At first glance, Henry Hatsworth looks and acts very similar to the old, bygone platform games, namely Super Mario Bros. and looks all set on becoming a repetitive clone, rather an original title. It is only when the tutorial levels end and the actual game starts does it bring distinct, original ideas... and it is from precisely here onward you’re given no reason to unappreciate the enjoyable and satisfying gameplay.
With traditional platform designs in check, with throwaway similarities to Castlevania, our protagonist is at first armed with only his trusty shotgun and a sword, which you shortly get afterwards. Though the shotgun can fire three bullets in succession, the sword is easily the most promising weapon in your arsenal, as it inflicts more damage. Occasionally, when the meter on the right in the puzzle section is filled to the max, a mode, called “Tea Time” is activated via tapping on the screen. In the so-called “Tea Time”, Henry can man a mecha-suit, or robot-suit, that can shoot lasers and stomp enemies. As great an addition the suit was, it was disappointing for two reasons. One: the robot-suit wasn’t exciting enough, and due to its awkward size and controls, it wasn’t fun to control and inflicted just about the same amount of damage as the sword, so it wasn’t cool at all. Two: it only activated for a disappointingly short period of time, and I’m talking mere seconds; in heavy contrast to how long it takes to fill up the bar.
Going back to the level designs, as much traditional as they were, the levels were alive and full of spirit. With impressive parallax scrolling, they reminded me of a 3D version of A Link to the Past. Unlike most other platformers where cheap deaths can occur if one misjudges the gap or ill-times a jump – *over here, the author looks askance at Super Castlevania IV” – this game is forgiving in that fact. If you don’t make a jump, don’t worry, as you will only fall in the green river below. But you must be careful, as you can drown. This “no-cheap-death-feature” was very inviting as I had one less thing to worry about.
The enemies vary from purple, stun-faced critters to knights to fire-breathing shamans to others. At every successful defeating of the enemy, he will go down to the puzzle section and become a block. Anyone who has played Columns or Hexicor other puzzle-matching games will know how the drill goes. When three or more blocks of the same color or icon are matched, they will disappear. If you match three blocks with faces on them – they are the enemies you fought in the “real world” – then the timer on the meter on the left will fill up. Likewise with the blocks with glowing spots in the center. The thing is the timer-meter is always decreasing, so you need to match and disappear as many blocks as you can in that time period. Quite-uncommon in other similar games, the blocks in Henry Hatsworth keep gradually moving upwards. Should an enemy block be at the top and should you fail to match him with two others or bring him down to a lower level, then the block will come out to the “real world” and start attacking you. Though they are easy to evade and one bullet does the job, it does become something of a pain when you are already fighting a horde of enemies or a boss. Once you kill the block, it is gone forever.
Like I said before, this game is always on its toes to trap you and keep you coming up with strategies. Never once was I frustrated by its difficulty, but after re-playing one level one-too many times just because I didn’t see the fire-breathing shaman and that three blocks escaped the puzzle section; I started getting a little hot under the collar. Calling it a day didn’t do the trick because by the time of where the difficulty got to me I had become quite-aiddicted and was determined to finish it, by any means necessary.
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
The result you get when you mix a British professor, platforming with puzzle elements and solid fun is Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure. To sum up the game; Tomb Raider with elements from Columns. Though the controls are a little finicky and a pain to get around to, the gameplay is original and always on its toes. Other games have originality that only seems to come in short bursts... here, it stays with you always and never gives up for a second.
The story sees the titular protagonist on the search for the Golden Suit – a grab that will allow the user access to the Puzzle Realm. At first skeptical that the suit has any alleged magical powers, he succumbs to the old wives tale when he personally witnesses what it can do, despite only finding the hat. When he dons it, he immediately becomes younger and fast, opposite of his current, original self. Intrigued, he then seeks out to find the rest of the suit, solving puzzles, fighting critters and knights along the way.
The story is simple and positively reeks of old school adventure and action, with exploring and battle elements. Quite reminiscent of King Solomon’s Mines – but without the macabre, of course. At first glance, Henry Hatsworth looks and acts very similar to the old, bygone platform games, namely Super Mario Bros. and looks all set on becoming a repetitive clone, rather an original title. It is only when the tutorial levels end and the actual game starts does it bring distinct, original ideas... and it is from precisely here onward you’re given no reason to unappreciate the enjoyable and satisfying gameplay.
With traditional platform designs in check, with throwaway similarities to Castlevania, our protagonist is at first armed with only his trusty shotgun and a sword, which you shortly get afterwards. Though the shotgun can fire three bullets in succession, the sword is easily the most promising weapon in your arsenal, as it inflicts more damage. Occasionally, when the meter on the right in the puzzle section is filled to the max, a mode, called “Tea Time” is activated via tapping on the screen. In the so-called “Tea Time”, Henry can man a mecha-suit, or robot-suit, that can shoot lasers and stomp enemies. As great an addition the suit was, it was disappointing for two reasons. One: the robot-suit wasn’t exciting enough, and due to its awkward size and controls, it wasn’t fun to control and inflicted just about the same amount of damage as the sword, so it wasn’t cool at all. Two: it only activated for a disappointingly short period of time, and I’m talking mere seconds; in heavy contrast to how long it takes to fill up the bar.
Going back to the level designs, as much traditional as they were, the levels were alive and full of spirit. With impressive parallax scrolling, they reminded me of a 3D version of A Link to the Past. Unlike most other platformers where cheap deaths can occur if one misjudges the gap or ill-times a jump – *over here, the author looks askance at Super Castlevania IV” – this game is forgiving in that fact. If you don’t make a jump, don’t worry, as you will only fall in the green river below. But you must be careful, as you can drown. This “no-cheap-death-feature” was very inviting as I had one less thing to worry about.
The enemies vary from purple, stun-faced critters to knights to fire-breathing shamans to others. At every successful defeating of the enemy, he will go down to the puzzle section and become a block. Anyone who has played Columns or Hexicor other puzzle-matching games will know how the drill goes. When three or more blocks of the same color or icon are matched, they will disappear. If you match three blocks with faces on them – they are the enemies you fought in the “real world” – then the timer on the meter on the left will fill up. Likewise with the blocks with glowing spots in the center. The thing is the timer-meter is always decreasing, so you need to match and disappear as many blocks as you can in that time period. Quite-uncommon in other similar games, the blocks in Henry Hatsworth keep gradually moving upwards. Should an enemy block be at the top and should you fail to match him with two others or bring him down to a lower level, then the block will come out to the “real world” and start attacking you. Though they are easy to evade and one bullet does the job, it does become something of a pain when you are already fighting a horde of enemies or a boss. Once you kill the block, it is gone forever.
Like I said before, this game is always on its toes to trap you and keep you coming up with strategies. Never once was I frustrated by its difficulty, but after re-playing one level one-too many times just because I didn’t see the fire-breathing shaman and that three blocks escaped the puzzle section; I started getting a little hot under the collar. Calling it a day didn’t do the trick because by the time of where the difficulty got to me I had become quite-aiddicted and was determined to finish it, by any means necessary.
Every game, no matter how perfect, has its issues and the player, his/her qualms. The game’s main issue lied in its tight controls and one-sided originality. You could see love went to its puzzle sections and the layout of the levels, but even then, they bore too many similarities to other games that had me thinking that somewhere down the line, the developers had become lazy. The introductory level is the same as the first level in Braid. Going to the tight controls, sometimes Henry would get all awkward and wouldn’t turn, while the knight’s sword would rain down upon him... killing him.
Also, the speaking parts are hilarious in the fact that they don’t contain any actual vocals; just screaming, yelping, and odd sounds from the throat. When Henry’s assistant ‘talked’, it seemed as if he was voiced by Link. But these are minor problems and nothing worth losing sleep over. I just wish they hadn’t existed or had some thought gone behind it.
The boss battles were very reminiscent of Megaman 2: The Power Fighters. The battles weren’t too impressive and had in them the same old “hit-once-and-dodge/duck” mentality that is witnessed in a-many other games, especially Mega Man Zero and its sequels.
In conclusion, Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure was a pure joy and satisfying in every level. It is likable, has considerable challenge and will provide old-school 80’s platform action with a modern touch to anyone wishing to give it a try. Like they say, there’s nothing like a good tea can’t fix. Henry Hatsworth knows that. And by the time you call it a day, you too will be craving for a cup of the greatest beverage the world has ever seen.
Note: Screenshots from all platforms that were available at the time can be found here at Moby Games.
Score: 9.0 / 10
Madden NFL 23 Review
Madden NFL 23 by developers EA Sports,
EA Tiburon and publisher Electronic Arts—Microsoft
Xbox Series X|S review written by Nick
with a copy provided by the publisher.
Madden NFL 23 hits different right out of the gates. The tired argument of “It’s just a roster update” falls flat this year more so than even in other recent years. This year’s iteration is a notable improvement over the last few years.
Last and certainly not least we have Franchise mode. This is the heart of the Madden series for me. In college my buddies and I would pick teams, play through seasons over the span of weeks, eating wings, drinking beers and talking a ton of trash to one another. It’s where you take on a franchise (go Lions!) and assume the role of owner, general manager or coach. All have different perks, such as the coach improving himself through talent and progression, and thereby making his players better. The other role is as an owner, where you still play the games, but your focus is more on whether or not to relocate the team, or make other tweaks to your franchise to improve profitability.
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
Madden NFL 23 hits different right out of the gates. The tired argument of “It’s just a roster update” falls flat this year more so than even in other recent years. This year’s iteration is a notable improvement over the last few years.
Of course, credit to the team here for hitting me in the nostalgia right off of the bat. For those who follow the NFL, they know that John Madden passed away on Dec 28, 2021. An NFL Hall of Fame coach and one of the most colorful sports broadcasters ever, John Madden was one of those ever-present personalities as I was growing up, and this football video game franchise with his name on it had a lot to do with my love for the sport at a young age.
So it is only fitting that the game kicks off with a screenshot of John Madden in his younger years, and the ‘game loading’ video is a mash-up of modern and throwback Madden titles, with the tagline: Thanks, Coach. We then rolled into the Madden Legacy Game that features many of his favorite players from over the years. These aren’t necessarily ‘best player’ studs like Tom Brady, but workhorse players like Mike Vrabel as well. Add in the various commentary pieces that extoll not just the players, but John Madden’s career as well, and this felt like a really fitting way to open things up.
Given that this is a series I started playing when the Sega Genesis came out and was a weekly staple with my friends and I throughout our college years. It was also a means for us to play franchises together and stay in touch as we ‘grew up and moved away’. There’s a lot of sentiment I carry for this series. All of that said however, I wanted to take an objective look at what Madden NFL 23 brings to the table this year, and overall? I’m really happy with most of it.
First and foremost are the tweaks to the actual gameplay. Over the years, the devs have tried to tweak the passing game the most. Some of those things (like the ability to change velocity on your throws) worked better than others (looking at you ill-fated passing cone of yesteryear), but we haven’t really seen a lot of improvements over the last few years now. This introduces a new skill-based system that gives you a lot more control – and complication – over the passing game. Accuracy and power are big parts of this, but also the ability to lead your receiver.
This more open and free method of passing takes some time to get used to. As someone who has spent years just pressing the button harder to throw bullets and hope the odds favor me, I struggled with these controls for the first few games. Stick with it. I promise you – once you get the hang of it? It’s so worth it. If you have a speedy receiver who can take the top off of the defense? This is a much better way to leverage that assuming your quarterback has the arm power to see the throw through. This change greatly reduced the feeling that defenders were just glued to the ball’s trajectory for knockdowns or interceptions compared to years past.
Defense got a bit of love this year as well, with stand-up tackles that are a bigger part of the running game (especially with a bruising back like Derrick Henry) trying to bust free. Running backs have a little more control over their cuts as well, making for some truly fantastic moments if you have a quick, agile running back (and some truly embarrassing moments if I try that with a slower guy who feels like he has his cleats in cement). Still, the focus feels like it went primarily into the passing game, which honestly makes a ton of sense given that the real NFL product has become much more pass-heavy in recent years.
Beyond the gameplay itself, we still have the top-notch presentation. Not that there is a wealth of improvement to be had here. Some newly popular or just new players (shoutout to Aidan Hutchinson as a Detroit Lions fan here) get some nice face scans and accurate representations of their physiques out on the field. Uniforms can become visibly wrinkled at times throughout the game. There are some cool new on-field animations, particularly in those wide receivers versus defensive back duels where there is a lot of jockeying for position on routes, especially near the line of scrimmage. The arenas, the way stats are presented, the color commentators and more all do an excellent job of recreating the NFL experience, even if this is one area that hasn’t seen much change overall.
Speaking of modes that didn’t get much love this year, there are a couple. With Madden NFL 23 being the latest in what is a franchise with annual releases, I don’t go into it expecting that there will be huge changes to every mode – my hope is that the improvements come to the modes I play most, and am fine of cobwebs that form around the ones I play least. For me The Yard and Madden Ultimate Team are probably the least interesting modes, and they’re the two that gathered a bit of dust from last season.
For those new to the series, or if you just haven’t played in some time, The Yard is basically a backyard six on six arcade style of game that leverages your Face of the Franchise as the only real reason to give it a go. Madden Ultimate Team seems like it should interest me more. I love fantasy football and I collect sports cards. So the idea of building a fantasy team out of packs of cards you earn should be a hoot for me, but the returns are only so-so. It’s incredibly grindy, but that’s intentional as it hopes to get you to spend more money on virtual packs of cards. This has become pretty common in a lot of sports games, but I don’t love it as a philosophy and this mode hasn’t really seen any growth in the last couple of years.
Where Madden NFL 23 has seen some change is the relatively recently added (a few years ago) Face of the Franchise mode. This has become EA’s answer to games like NBA 2K that have gained a ton of popularity around the idea of creating a superstar that then has a somewhat narrative-based career arc. The story itself has gotten a bit less cinematic than in years past, where you played a character through their high school or college years to make the pros – often as some sort of an underdog story.
Here it is a bit different as you are a fifth year player who everyone agrees has loads of potential – but it hasn’t quite clicked yet at previous stops. So now you get to pick a team to sign with, and to play more positions than ever (QB, WR, LB, CB and HB) as you develop your player and try to carve out a legendary career for yourself. Because of its aforementioned ties to The Yard, there’s a bit of connective tissue here that makes this mode a bit more relevant than it might be on its own. It feels like there’s still room to grow here, but I enjoyed my time with Face of the Franchise all the same.
Last and certainly not least we have Franchise mode. This is the heart of the Madden series for me. In college my buddies and I would pick teams, play through seasons over the span of weeks, eating wings, drinking beers and talking a ton of trash to one another. It’s where you take on a franchise (go Lions!) and assume the role of owner, general manager or coach. All have different perks, such as the coach improving himself through talent and progression, and thereby making his players better. The other role is as an owner, where you still play the games, but your focus is more on whether or not to relocate the team, or make other tweaks to your franchise to improve profitability.
However, the primary carrot dangled in this mode is the overall sense of progression. Play your games, meet certain goals, watch your players improve and do what you can to help your team improve too. That can be through internal player development, scouting for the best upcoming rookies, making major trades or free agent signings and more. There were some great changes made to how staffing and scouting worked last season, and those have been carried over here.
Madden NFL 23 drills down deeper into the players though, assigning them motivations that can impact their progression, but also how they feel about their relationship with the team. This is most notable in how it impacts things like contract negotiations. If the player doesn’t feel like you’ve done right by them, it’s going to be much harder to get them to come back on a reasonable salary, which in turn depletes the amount of money you have to field the best team you can.
If the gameplay simply stunk, none of the above would matter – but the football action is still a blast. Are there odd AI behaviors that pop up? Sure – there’s 22 players on the field all trying to work independently of one another and exploitable to outright odd things can happen in zone coverage for example. But by and large the way the lines mash against one another, the way wide receivers try to shed jams at the line of scrimmage, the way running backs try to eek out a few more yards and more all just feels good. Add to it the momentum meters and objectives during the game that might give one team an advantage over the other (for example during Lions home games, they can receive a slight acceleration boost if things break their way), and there was a lot that I enjoyed.
Madden NFL 23 continues to make improvements, and for those thinking it is just a roster update? Give it a go first and you’ll see that it’s a lot more. This is especially true of Franchise Mode, which is where I tend to spend the majority of my time. There’s still some rough edges here and there and room for improvement with some of the languishing modes, but by and large Madden NFL 23 is a great tribute to the series’ namesake and an entertaining game of football.
Score: 8.5 / 10
